US lifts ground stop, to resume flights after air traffic network failure sparks chaos

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The Department of Homeland Security says there were no signs the outage was caused by a cyberattack

The Department of Homeland Security says there were no signs the outage was caused by a cyberattack

[WASHINGTON] The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) lifted a nationwide ground stop on Friday (Nov 13) after a communications failure at air traffic control centres caused chaos at US airports and triggered the longest shutdown since the Sep 11, 2001, attacks.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said US airspace reopened at 8.15 pm ET, but warned that departures would resume gradually and it would take time for airlines to restore normal operations.

By 11.30 pm ET, nearly 10,000 flights had been cancelled, including more than 2,200 each at Delta Air Lines and American Airlines, and 1,800 at United Airlines, according to Flightradar24.

The plane-tracking website said some aircraft at major airports had waited more than five hours for a gate.

The four-hour nationwide grounding could disrupt airline schedules for days, aviation analysts said.

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Duffy said that tens of thousands of passengers were stranded at airports around the country. He added that he and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin had met with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss the outage.

The failure is the latest and most dramatic sign of strain on a US air traffic control system beset by ageing technology, equipment and communications problems and a shortage of several thousand controllers.

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